Even though I’ve mainly been building military models over the last couple of years, I appreciate a good spaceship. And I’ve always been disappointed that I haven’t been able to play the iconic and influential Homeworld games. French builder Dorian Glacet has been playing Homeworld 2 lately, and built this great ship (actually a true SHIP at 105 studs long) with classic colors and stripes.

Dorian’s SHIP may look a lot like many of the other Homeworld-inspired spaceships we’ve featured over the years, but when I looked at his photostream, I was struck by the rather innovative approach to the ship’s core, which is entirely “studs-out”:

Dorian then attached greebles and the ship’s skin to this core:

Check out Dorian’s photostream on Flickr for more, including preliminary digital designs and work-in-progress shots.

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Got builders block and need a break? Want a challenge? Or just want to test your building know how? Then I suggest you check out the fun little Reverse Engineering Contest. Unlike a lot of LEGO contest that ask you to create something, this one asks you to copy a build. They’re all small and deceptively simple, but once you actually sit down and start playing with it, it’s not always as easy as it seems.

This marks the first, of nine, weekly challenges:

It starts off simple and gets progressively harder. So why not join in on the action? Stretch your building brain a bit with these building exercises – oh and don’t forget to read up on the rules on how you could win some prizes. Though this contest is one where the best reward is figuring out all the puzzles.

Oh who am I kidding, a Birds set, and most importantly: rare and useful pieces from contest runner Ryan H. (LDM) is a pretty great prize.

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Jason Allemann has come up with a design for Lego ballista that can launch a 2×4 brick 15 feet (which will let you hit almost any target in even the biggest dioramas). The best part is that he has posted step-by-step instructions for you to build your own. Time to get ready for battle!

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As a small child back in Japan, I used Go pieces to create serpentine roads across tatami floors for my little Tomica cars, but my family left Japan before I ever played a proper game. I still get nostalgic whenever I see Go games. Joe Miller built this fully functional 9×9 Go set completely from LEGO, using some rather complicated techniques to place the black lines on the board.

The lines themselves are the tops of 1×2 half-panels wedged into full (3-brick high) panels, combined with some serious sideways and upside-down (SNOT) construction.

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This crazy house is the fault of César Soares and it’s an eye-catcher. It really has some unusual angles going on, both on the roof and the walls. I also like the patches and repairs. It gives the house a sense of character and helps create a story in your mind.

It’s the TBB Lemur Intern here, once again, to answer your questions and be your window into the deepest, darkest reaches of the LEGO hobby. Well, that and candy canes, cookies and all the other yummy bits that people keep leaving about. Such a scrumptious time of year! I’m loving everybody! Caylin let me lick the bowl after she made her world famous fudge and Ralph needed a guinea pig for his egg-nog experiment. I said I didn’t know any guinea pigs so he said I would have to do. It was really yummy! Not sure what the experiment was, but as long as he turns out delicious nog, I’m happy.

Oh, I have a bit of news. There is now a Lemur button on the sidebar! If you want to ask me a question, just click on it and leave a comment in the most recent ‘Ask A Lemur’ post. There is also a bit of delay in the Lemur Loot. Once it gets here, the mail room gnomes will gather all the addresses and get caught up on the backlog.

On to your questions!

How do you sort your Lego collection? And what ways of sorting have you found work best for which styles of building?

That is a great question! It is also not an easy question to answer because everyone sorts a little bit differently. There are two main ways though. Sorting by color and sorting by piece. Many fans first begin by sorting their collections by color.

The problem with that is once all your pieces are in bins of the same color, it is really hard to pick out the pieces you need because everything sort of blurs together. So most builders then move onto some version of sorting by piece. The problem there is that there are so many different pieces you can spend the rest of your life sorting your collection in the various pieces.

A good way to start is to do what many call a “rough sort”. Figure out what kinds of pieces you use most and separate them from the mass of pieces you don’t use. Then you can sort those into similar categories. If you have a lot of the same pieces, you might want to sort those by color. Some do and some don’t. I’m sure other readers will chime in and talk about the specifics of how they sort.

Personally, I sort my collection by taste. It takes a very keen set of taste buds but it’s totally worth it.

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One of the more notable Maschin Krieger inspired builds from this year’s Ma.Ktober fest is probably the Baumeister Spinnentier, a “construction arachnid” style zero-G hardsuit, created by Canadian builder Josh Derksen.

Clearly the break-out technique Josh has used here is the application of paint to give the model a rusted look (…yes it rains in space, deal with it!). Using paint to artificially ‘weather’ LEGO is something I’ve wanted to do myself for a long time, but have not yet been man enough to attempt. But Josh totally nails it with this creation. Check out his full breakdown to get a look at all of its finer details and play features (which include poseable arms and pincers, and an openable cockpit).

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Applying stickers used to be something my dad would do for me when I built sets as a kid, and seems to be far less common in today’s adult builds. But anyone paying attention to the space builders this past year has seen a steady rise in stickering, especially in the micro-sized builds. Enter Jacob Unterreiner (4estFeller). We’ve seen him a few times here on this blog but I don’t think we’ve really seen him like this:

That’s a pretty amazing stickering job. But look at it closer, that’s a micro GARC and is only 11×5 studs! Feels a lot bigger, eh? He’s taken stickering to the next level and really able to skew the sense of scale with his intense stickering. By my count (assuming symmetrical stickering and no stickers on the bottom) I found 54 stickers! That’s probably 2-3 times the usual sticker sheet size for a 1000 piece LEGO set.

But dear reader, you might be asking yourself, how does he achieve such wonderful results? Thanks to our friends at Build Like a Boss who have been running a series of tutorials on everything from advanced bricklink buying, building frames or bases, and of course stickering:

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Luke Hutchinson is one of the current top medieval builders and this creation shows why. This is a build that he built nearly a year ago and never posted because he didn’t feel it was quite right. The majority of builders just post whatever they make as soon as it is done. Letting a build sit for a time and then coming back to it later can give you a much better perspective. I call it letting a build ‘age’. Another sign of Luke’s build skill is the standard to which he holds himself. This build wasn’t posted originally because there were a number of aspects with which he wasn’t happy. A good builder doesn’t build to get the “Wow, awesome build!” comments but should be pushing themselves to ever greater things. Do I think this build is striking? Yes, I do. The unique colors, mixed with Luke’s trademark roof profiles and textured walls really make this pop for me. But I’m also very happy to see that Luke is willing and able to self-critique and push himself to a higher level. Well done, sir!